


Ask Or Act

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, for:swatkat24
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-27
Updated: 2009-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But don't lie.  Don't try to play a player.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ask Or Act

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swatkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swatkat/gifts).



> Written for swatkat24. Thanks to bell for the beta.

**Ask or Act**

Foreman has the grace to wait two weeks before cornering Cuddy in her office.

Cuddy supposes it's grace. Foreman's a politician, and not a bad one, so there's nothing on her schedule and the emails she was going through when he walked in can certainly wait for the twenty minutes he is, very smoothly, asking her for. Cuddy leans back in her chair the precise amount that means _I will listen but don't even dream that you're getting what you want_. Foreman takes up his position opposite her: perfectly groomed, perfectly tailored, watching her with the mild, cool confidence of someone who believes that his point of view is irrefutable.

Cuddy knows what he's going to ask. There will be plenty to refute, even if it's only the deeply buried part of her that wants to scream, _How can you do this to him?_

They're here because forms should be followed, so Foreman will follow them--he's not House. Which is the point; and it's the one they both think they can use to win this argument.

-

It sets her teeth on edge that Foreman's being so damn _reasonable_. He's waiting patiently; he's asking her permission. He keeps coming _back_. Cuddy wants to demand, "Didn't House teach you not to _ask_?"

But she's too afraid that a distant, offended look will cross his face; that he will say, "I'm not House."

That she'll have to deal with that fact.

-

The next time, Foreman comes in carrying a chart. For a moment it looks like he might bring up a real case. Instead, after glancing at it, he closes the chart and sets it on his knee. He crosses his legs; he sets his elbows on the armrests and interlocks his fingers. Cuddy wants to know that he's paying for his damn composure.

"You're going to lose Thirteen and Taub if you keep the department closed down." There's no regret in his voice when he says _Thirteen_.

"I thought you two were doing well," Cuddy says, with the slight severity that means she's aware of the relationship, even though it shouldn't have continued when, technically, Foreman is Hadley's superior.

Foreman's quiet for a moment too long, and Cuddy feels it as a rebuke for her waspishness. Taub has already handed in his notice, and assured her with resigned amusement that it wasn't because of her. Cuddy asked Thirteen to do ER rotations until House returned--whenever, if ever that might be. She can't pretend to be surprised that Thirteen's suspicious, sarcastic acceptance didn't last.

Foreman acts more concerned than Cuddy would have given him credit for. She might almost think he cares about something other than himself. "You can't hold on to how things always were," he says as he stands to leave.

House would sneer and say that _he_ always could. But even that's not true any more.

-

"Maybe you shouldn't ask," Cuddy snaps finally. She's tired of this dance, of him showing up in her office on a pretext. Taking up space in the middle of her office, as if he could dominate the room. Cuddy stands in front of him, refusing to give ground.

Foreman snorts, dropping out his respectful mask for once. "Don't ask. Right. Take what I want and expect no consequences."

Cuddy won't let him corner her into having made that argument. "That's not what I meant." It's what House would have done; Foreman's eyebrow raise says he knows it. If even House couldn't assume, he'd simply hallucinate her permission instead.

Even in her heels, Cuddy is short enough to have the perfect angle on Foreman's damn condescension, the amusement at the corners of his mouth and the arrogance in his eyes. He's trying to put her off-balance and Cuddy won't be pushed.

And then he lifts a hand to her cheek. The soft pad of his thumb brushes her lower lip. Astonished, Cuddy stops breathing. With a hint of a smile, Foreman kisses her, firm but not deeply, intent enough that she can't mistake his intention.

"That's what House would have done?"

It brings back everything that House _did_ do--that Cuddy did to him, in their endless battle; it brings back the sound of his voice _shouting_ from the second-floor balcony _I did Lisa Cuddy_. For hours afterward, she couldn't stop shaking, her throat heavy with words she couldn't shout, with the realization that House will never _stop_ going too far.

"No," she says. Her voice is husky. And then, stronger: "Did you expect to convince me with that?"

There's the tug of a smile at his lips that's nearly as clear as if he'd spoken out loud. He's offering her far more than a kiss. "No. I expected you'd rather be asked." He raises his eyebrows, the same skeptical calculation that he showed when he thought he could still get more from her than his old job back. "It's late. Dinner?"

"No," she says.

Foreman accepts that with enough equanimity that he must have expected her answer. He gives up her space and walks out. Cuddy presses her lips together and tastes the echo of his kiss.

-

He's in House's desk chair when she comes upstairs. It's a violation, but he pulls it off; he never once shows that he shouldn't be there. He probably believes it's his right, whether she's said yes or not.

"Dinner," she says. She's already called the babysitter; with her babysitter's schedule, she's had tonight planned longer than she should.

Foreman's smile curves, satisfaction lighting his eyes. "I'd like that."

Cuddy fumes at him. She wants to see him undone. "What are you waiting for?"

He blinks, but he takes her question in stride. "For House to come back. If you won't put me in charge, it's still diagnostics."

Shadows haunt the office. Cuddy can nearly see the ghosts that forced House out. She doesn't believe a borrowed chair can contain Foreman's ambition. "Don't tell me you're settling."

Foreman's face hardens. "There are other hospitals in the country."

Foreman doesn't need to be reminded of what happened at Mercy. Cuddy doesn't need to be reminded that he's only biding his time.

-

"Is this a game?" she asks, in the low light of an intimate dinner. For the first time, she sees a flicker behind his eyes that means she's scored a point.

She asks because of the candle in the middle of the table; because of his nod to the wine steward, because of the careful set of his hand near hers. She resents his smoothness. He's treating her like she's the latest in a long line of interchangeable dinner partners. Leaning in, she says, as though confiding: "I'm not playing with you by not giving you your own department."

This time, his only answer is a flat look that says, _Don't lie, Cuddy. Don't try to play a player._

So perhaps they're only here because House is not. She thinks he is saying, _Learn to live without him_. She thinks he is saying, _I am not House. I am better than he ever was_.

Yes, he's better. He holds up his end of the conversation without gratuitously insulting her, without making jokes about her breasts or her ass. He still manages to disagree. He tells her about mistakes he thinks she's made, carefully eliding his own lowly position in the Neurology department as one of them. He's courteous, and when she snaps back at him, he chuckles. He nods, agrees, allows.

He _allows_. She's beginning to hate his smugness. "Why the hell are you doing this?"

"You're leaving an entire department empty and unstaffed," he says, meeting her eyes evenly. "For how long? Do you really think he'll come back and it'll be just the way it always was?"

"And would I really want that," Cuddy finishes for him. She's keeping Diagnostics like a shrine. She's always let her feelings for House affect how she treats him. Cuddy hasn't missed a single one of Foreman's implications; she only prefers to let them slide by. "So you're just killing time? That's what I am to you? How is that better than how House treated me?"

Foreman takes a swallow from his wine glass, but for now, he's not backing away from the truth. "You play games with him. This isn't one. It's temporary."

"You're really convincing me," she says dryly.

"He'll come back and things will change. Right now, why not something different?"

It's all too pat, and none of it is about desire. Cuddy doesn't know if she's attracted to what he's offering or if she only wants him so that she can prove her own point by pushing him away. "And you'll go back to Thirteen."

Foreman shakes his head. "She and I don't want the same things."

"And you think we do."

He tilts his head, keeps his gaze on her face steady. "We want to forget House."

_Except_, Cuddy thinks, _without forgetting him at all_. What House imagined, Foreman will have. If he can't have his name on the glass, he'll mark his passage elsewhere. It's a competition he's already lost, and Cuddy wonders if he even knows.

-

Cuddy's furious at his presumption by the time they leave. She stalks ahead of him to his car, wishing like hell that she'd taken her own.

Foreman walks up behind her, maybe only intending to open yet another door for her, but Cuddy spins around, grabs him, and pulls him into a punishing kiss. There's no point in waiting. Foreman answers immediately, nearly crushing her, his arms banding around her. Cuddy bites down on his lip and pushes free on his yell of pain.

"What do you think this is going to _prove_?"

Foreman's eyes are sullen, one hand lifted to feel the tenderness of his lip.

"Nothing," she answers for him. "It won't help. Take me home."

-

"I'm sorry," he says.

She's almost astonished that he's apologizing. She's more astonished that he doesn't follow it with anything. _I'm sorry but you're wrong, I'm sorry but you're projecting_\--all of House's dissecting bullshit.

Instead, Foreman broods, staring out the windshield, waiting for her to climb out of his car and end this. Cuddy looks down in her lap, then out the passenger window. The lights in the living room are on, but Rachel should be down for the night.

"Come in," she snaps, exasperated with both of them.

-

She doesn't stay to see his surprise. She speaks to the babysitter, pays her, and then goes into Rachel's bedroom to lay a hand on her back and feel the soft draw of her breath.

She is so beautiful, sleep-warm and soothed when Cuddy strokes her back.

Cuddy closes her eyes; wishes that it was that easy to breathe.

-

Whatever else Foreman wants, his desire is real. Cuddy pushes him back to her bedroom and closes the door. She responds to him easily, the soft exploration as he undresses her, the clear lines of arousal in his body. The scrape of his beard across her lips, her breasts, feels better than it should. Foreman never reached to turn on the lamp, and, shuddering under him, Cuddy is glad.

He holds himself up on his elbows, his chest flexing as he settles over her at last. He pushes in. Cuddy's mouth opens; it's good, feeling him fill her, the stretch reminding her that this is real--

_House did this, believed he did this, and it wasn't real at all--_

"Look at me."

Cuddy doesn't want to, and so she does. Foreman's eyes are a dark gleam, his expression shrouded by the shadows. She lifts her hips to meet his second thrust. He goes deeper, but it's so slow that she wonders what he's trying to prove with all his goddamn self-restraint.

"Move," she says.

Foreman obeys, rolling more tightly against her, until she can't take anymore. His hand spreads warm across her belly, his thumb rubs her clit. His erection inside her, unmistakable, moves in increments of pressure against her g-spot.

"God," she says. "Oh, God."

House would say, _Yeah, people confuse us all the time._

Foreman says, "Come for me." His voice is strained, his panting breaths rasping in his throat.

At least he's affected. At least he's _here_. Is that the lesson she's supposed to learn?

Sweet, hurtful pleasure draws her out of her body, sieves her into a thousand pieces, all of them pure. Leaving behind something that is grief, or wondering, or guilt. Falling back into herself, she thinks of House, of his empty eyes when he realized he'd been alone. Foreman's thrusts quicken, her muscles clenching around him in stuttering rhythm, his control lost at last. Foreman's broad back under her hands, his scent mingling with hers, his hand, his cock, his body. And at the same time, none of him at all. It sparks a second orgasm in her, weaker and sharper, but so surprising that she gasps.

She doesn't call out his name.

Foreman isn't still, after he comes. He moves inside her, slow and careful, his lips parted, eyes shuttered, until, at last, he sighs, and draws away. A minute, a moment later, Foreman fits himself behind her, one arm holding her close. Cuddy doesn't ask him to go, because he is, for once, asking for nothing from her.

-

Rachel's crying wakes her in the morning. Foreman has drifted away on the bed, so she doesn't wake him when she gets up.

She prepares Rachel's bottle and goes to the nursery already murmuring hushing sounds. Rachel snuggles into the crook of her elbow, sucking vigorously on the bottle nipple. The sounds of her swallowing and the hint of a creak from the rocking chair's joints are all Cuddy needs right now.

Foreman finds her there. He's wearing his wrinkled dress pants and his shirt is untucked. He hasn't put on his tie or his jacket. Cuddy grips Rachel tighter. He shouldn't be allowed. Not here.

When she looks up, it's to find something rueful in his eyes. Maybe it's seeing Rachel, acknowledging Cuddy with her. Reality can hurt. Cuddy isn't only the hospital, and she will never be a route for Foreman's power.

Yes, he is better. But he is too invested in being better. And after all of this, he hasn't convinced her that he is enough.

"Don't ask me again," Cuddy says, and she waits for him to leave.


End file.
